Holy paladins- When do you melee?

Been thinking about my mana on my pally recently and wondering, when did I stop standing in melee and hitting the boss? I think it was some point last tier.. Honestly I feel like my fear of standing in melee stems from the fact that I'm not sure what mechanics I will kill the melee with. Ex- Blade lord wind step and tornados wiped us a few times to mw monks and holy pal standing in melee hitting the boss. We were never sure if it was b/c too many ppl were in melee, or b/c it can just target healers.

How many players have to be standing in melee before abilities like that start targeting them? Are there some abilities that will target ranged dps and healers regardless of where they are standing? If so I feel like mw monks and hpal should be considered melee by the game...

As for your question about mechanics like wind step, it depends entirely on the fight. I believe Wind Step picks targets based on spec, meaning healers and ranged, so in that case you have to be very careful not to be in melee range if it's about to happen.

Basically, you have to just go fight by fight. Are there any mechanics that require a certain number of people at range? Are there mechanics like on Iron Qon that trigger on large clusters of players? Chain Lightning style mechanics (i.e. Lei Shen's diffusion) that get worse if you're near other people? If there's no reason for you to stand at range, you might as well be in melee range getting free mana. If there is a good reason to be at range, can you dance between range and melee safely?

I tend to melee on a fight to fight basis, for example on the first three bosses in TOT I don't bother as much as mana is fine for me, if I do need to use Divine Plea, I just use Guardian before hand for the extra haste bringing the time to about 1.8 secs and slam in some melee hits after topping the tank up after the three horn slash or whatever it's called.

On Tortos, due to the way our tank stands on the fight I can sit by the left hand side of Tortos and bash him throughout the fight as and when needed.

For Mageara I generally try to get a couple of hits in on the first couple of enrages as they're easily manageable by other healers and light of dawn by me, later on in the fight I generally don't get a chance to without a potential problem.

Ji-Kun I do it on downdraft, people won't be taking damage and I have "Speed of Light" for that particular fight, plenty of time for a few melee swings and free mana.

Just a few examples of when I melee for my mana, haven't got past Durumu on normal yet, but it's generally same tactic, when people aren't taking much damage, hit the boss.

Been thinking about my mana on my pally recently and wondering, when did I stop standing in melee and hitting the boss? I think it was some point last tier.. Honestly I feel like my fear of standing in melee stems from the fact that I'm not sure what mechanics I will kill the melee with. Ex- Blade lord wind step and tornados wiped us a few times to mw monks and holy pal standing in melee hitting the boss. We were never sure if it was b/c too many ppl were in melee, or b/c it can just target healers.

How many players have to be standing in melee before abilities like that start targeting them? Are there some abilities that will target ranged dps and healers regardless of where they are standing? If so I feel like mw monks and hpal should be considered melee by the game...

You weren't wiped from a MW monk standing in melee on Blade Lord. Unlike holy paladins, mistweavers are considered melee, so they are exempt from all range only mechanics.

I melee the boss for mana if there happens to be a time where it is acceptable for me to be in melee. For instance horridon, I autoattack the boss until being by the boss is not longer safe. During Meguera, I make sure to turn autoattack on a head when we are stacked for rampage. Anytime we happen to be stacked on a boss, I autoattack it. I don't really go out of my way to do it. If it doesn't fit in with the fight or our strat, I don't do it.

I am 3/13H, I melee every fight I can. You should also be using crusader strike for easy and cheap holy power (costs less than holy shock but yields a hopo, with the right rotation you get nice cheap eternal flames).

If you aren't melee'ing, you aren't doing it right :P

Haven't touched WoW in almost 3 years...I'm happy to say I'm finally off it. I did just pick up GW2 though...

I am 3/13H, I melee every fight I can. You should also be using crusader strike for easy and cheap holy power (costs less than holy shock but yields a hopo, with the right rotation you get nice cheap eternal flames).

I was thinking of putting up an encounter guide since no one else has done it for ToT, but probably it would wait until progression is further along (basically a talent/glyph/do this guide).

Anyway the best melee fights I've seen are Tortos and Durumu so far. You can melee on Megaera (and it works well) depending on raid positioning. You can also sneak some melees in on most fights, especially those which you are struggling on mana (Horridon, Council of Elders, Primordius seem to be very mana-intense at least on early progression).

Jinrok - works really nice
Horridon - Melee Horridon and you have everyone in range and have good overview of the fight
Council - depending on strategy, you can melee Sul as he barely gets moved but you might put Sandtraps under the bosses
Tortos - Huge hitbox, melee to build up Holypower to always have 5 HP for each stomp
Megaera - stand in melee but watch the cinders debuff so you dont F**k the melees
Jikun - melee, watch that you soak a few puddles in melee, besides you dont get targetet by Caw
Durumu - melee, just watch that you dont place the puddles in melee, especially during Lightspectrum phase so you can keep everyone in range
Primordius - standing in melee actually not so easy as you have to spread for some boss mechanics
Dark Animus - melee your add as long as possible, later I usally stand next to the animus tank to intercept the anima ring and hence melee the boss
Iron Qon - depending on raidsetup, usually during P1 no melee, P2 only melee if you have no arcing lightning rebuff, P3 again of no arcing lightning rebuff, P4 melee
Twins - no melee because of range problem
Lei Shen - standing in melee causes a few problems, first you have to move out of the voids the boss puts in melee, second you might get targetet by Thunderstruck und then all melee and tanks have to move, so basically no melee hitting there

Jinrok - works really nice
Horridon - Melee Horridon and you have everyone in range and have good overview of the fight
Council - depending on strategy, you can melee Sul as he barely gets moved but you might put Sandtraps under the bosses
Tortos - Huge hitbox, melee to build up Holypower to always have 5 HP for each stomp
Megaera - stand in melee but watch the cinders debuff so you dont F**k the melees
Jikun - melee, watch that you soak a few puddles in melee, besides you dont get targetet by Caw
Durumu - melee, just watch that you dont place the puddles in melee, especially during Lightspectrum phase so you can keep everyone in range
Primordius - standing in melee actually not so easy as you have to spread for some boss mechanics
Dark Animus - melee your add as long as possible, later I usally stand next to the animus tank to intercept the anima ring and hence melee the boss
Iron Qon - depending on raidsetup, usually during P1 no melee, P2 only melee if you have no arcing lightning rebuff, P3 again of no arcing lightning rebuff, P4 melee
Twins - no melee because of range problem
Lei Shen - standing in melee causes a few problems, first you have to move out of the voids the boss puts in melee, second you might get targetet by Thunderstruck und then all melee and tanks have to move, so basically no melee hitting there

Just wanted to add my notes to this (heroic bosses):
Council - you have to be extremely careful due to mechanics that will wipe the raid if you get targeted in melee.
Tortos - use the crystals for melee so your not in the way of the real melee and dont cause extra rock fall spawns on them.
Megaera - only melee the boss during rampages
Primordius - never stand in melee range of the boss, instead run from one small add to another while meleeing them (yes it does help)
Dark Animus - stand in boss' melee range but make sure you are not standing on anyone as that could get them and you killed (you should not be tanking an add really).
Iron Qon - only safe phase is last phase
Lei Shen - burn all your mana in phase 1 and the phase transistion, then melee all of phase 2 so you are full on mana by the time you get to the transistion (obviously you have to move in and out a few times in this phase). Melee the boss in phase 3 too when you are standing there.
Ra-Den - melee the boss pretty much the entire fight

And yes CS does help, obviously dont use that over HS but using it will increase your healing.

The problem with meleeing for mana (and Divine Plea as well) is that, generally speaking, the more time you have when it is safe to melee and Plea, the less short of mana you're probably going to be in the first place.

I have tried that on both heroic and normal and whenever I stand in melee and there are at least 2 other ranged on platform I dont get targeted.

As Pacer said, that is just good rng. I have been targeted multiple times on normal and heroic and it doesn't matter where you are standing like all range-only mechanics.

In fact, one of our wipes when heroic was progression was from some range running into melee for the down draft too soon and caw targetting 2-3 of said range who were too close together and killing multiple people.

For any noobs reading this thread be very careful about using CS for holy power. It is a useful tactic but gear and fight dependant. Even in my gear 509 with 11k spirit or so its usually an awful idea. With more spirit and after I drop the t14 4p, it'll be considerably more useful.

As for meleeing, learn how mechanics work and you'll know exactly when you can and cannot melee. In regards to ji-kun, caw is dodge able so it doesn't really matter if you're in melee, just obviously you should stay away from others. In fact when meleeing on nearly any boss, its best to stand at the side so as not to interfere in melee field of vision (such as seeing sand traps spawn under them)